Job Chapter 6



Now for Job's answer (Job 6). "Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed" - there was just where they were wrong; they only looked at the surface - "and my calamity laid in the balances together." No, they had no proper balances, they were all one-sided. "For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea" - and so it was - "therefore my words are swallowed up." They were all confused. He admits his language was not what it ought to be. He was so put to it by inward suffering and desperate pain that his words were quite confused, not quietly uttered, but simply swallowed up in the violence of his emotion. "For the arrows of the Almighty are within me." You see he entirely gives way to it. "The poison whereof drinketh up my spirit; the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me."

Now they had talked about the lions - Eliphaz had, at any rate. But Job brings a much more pertinent case into the matter. "Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass?" If he has got his proper food does he bray as if he were suffering from great hunger? "Or loweth the ox over his fodder?" No, he thankfully eats it. "Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt?" Here am I, and not even a morsel of food but what costs me pain, and I have nothing to make it agreeable; no salt with it; it is all poison as it were - poison that entered and drank up his spirit. "Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?" The best thing he could get was that which was altogether insipid and disagreeable. "The things that my soul refused to touch are my sorrowful meat; Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! Even that it would please God to destroy me."

You see he had not the slightest fear of death. He was singularly above it; but he looked at death not so much as gain - he could not do that; he had not Christ to make it gain; but he looked to death as the cessation of his trouble, the end of his suffering. And so it would be. That, of course, was a very partial way, and by no means up to the mark that God was going to show him. But I mention it to show that it was not at all any fear of the unseen world; it was the trial that he could not solve it this present tangled life. "Then should I yet have comfort; yea, I would harden myself in sorrow: Let him not spare; for I have not concealed the words of the Holy One." The ordinary meaning of, "concealed" is not at all the idea here. "I have not violated" - I have not denied - "the words of the Holy One." That is what they were doing; they were denying the words of the Holy One. They in their zeal, and in their superficial judgment, were not guided by the Holy One at all; they were acting according to their own thoughts; judging according to their own feelings, on the mere surface of poor Job's intense affliction.

"What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life? Is my strength the strength of stone, or is my flesh of brass?" - to be able to endure all this without any feeling. "Is not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me? To him that is afflicted pity should be showed from his friend." That they should be so lacking in pity - there was what galled him; there was what was inexplicable, next to the great riddle of how God allowed all this to come upon him - that there was not one word of true pity; not one word but what was very superficial, because of the bad judgment, the misjudgment that was underneath it. "My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away; which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid: what time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place." They were of no use whatever to him. "The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish." He compares it with the desert; he was familiar with it, as they all were. It is a very different thing to pass through the desert in the winter, and to pass through the same desert in the summer - in the winter when people do not want so much the refreshment of water, and in the heat of summer when they feel the great need of even a drop of water to cool their tongue - then it is that the 'wadies' as they call them - those brooks that for a time cross the desert of despair - are completely sucked up by the sand or exhaled by the power of the son. That is what he compares this to. And therefore it is that the same company of Tema, or of Sheba, that passed through the desert might remember that there is where we should find water in the midst of all this trouble: 'Ah! we hope we are nearing it now.' Not a drop; not a drop! That is like you. Time was when I could have got comfort from you, but now everything is changed. You have nothing now but an evil lurking suspicion that has no foundation at all. "The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them. They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thither, and were ashamed." There was not water to be seen. They had been promising themselves when nearing it, 'That is where we were only six months ago, when there was plenty of water' - and now six months after, not a drop! "For now ye are nothing; ye see my casting down, and are afraid."

Yes, that was their state; they were shocked; they did not want to get near him even. They did not wish to have even the sense of the fetid breath of the poor sufferer, or to touch the skin for fear of contracting something bad themselves. They kept away from it; they were afraid. "Did I say, Bring unto me? or, Give a reward for me of your substance?" He says, 'It is not that I have the least want for anything, and yet you are treating me as if I were a person to be wanting to draw upon you in my trouble. No, I ask nothing of you except that you should not misjudge me.' "Did I say, Bring unto me? or, Give a reward for me of your substance? or, Deliver me from the enemy's hand? or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty? Teach me, and I will hold my tongue; and cause me to understand wherein I have erred. How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing reprove? Do you imagine to reprove words?"

That is what they were doing. He had broken out in these violent words, and they pitched upon them at once to say, 'Ah, yes! there is old Job beginning to show himself. Now he is in this way, just think what the world would say if they heard or saw Job now!' "Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind? Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye dig a pit for your friend. Now, therefore, be content; look upon me" - yes, he begs that they would look upon him - "for it is evident unto you if I lie." That is, 'if there is anything hidden under; that is what you suspect.' "Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity" - he begs them to return to that, and to return to a sound judgment of the case, that it was their poor friend put to so tremendous a trial and could not see why it was come upon him. "Let it not be iniquity." It has nothing to do with that. He had to learn that his own righteousness, however real, could be no ground; he must have the righteousness of God to stand upon, though he hardly knew how it could be. That is what comes out later in the book. "Is there iniquity in my tongue? Cannot my taste discern perverse things?" That is what they were treating him to.